#which might seem totally arbitrary

[formula-red]

.

[burst-of-iridescent]

Personally Kat.aang looks bad to me because Aang gave his most lightest skinned child special treatment 💀 there were air acolytes who weren’t air benders themselves but were still dedicated to keeping the culture alive so leaving Kya and Bumi out on account of them not being air benders is absolute bullsh*t. You don’t see Zutara shippers calling Kat.aang shippers racist because of it 🤔

yeah see this is one of those things that again ties back to bry.ke being totally oblivious about the implications of what they were writing because the optics of the kat.aang family are… troubling, to put it nicely.

the darker-skinned woman is a waterbender. the lighter-skinned man is an airbender. the nonbender is conveniently in-between. their clothing all correspond strictly to their individual elements (except bumi who gets chucked to red for the audacity of not being born an airbender — at least till he conveniently turns into one). if you knew nothing of these characters you’d never know they were biracial at all.

which is just… so disappointing. part of the reason i love zutara is how the fandom handles the incorporation of both cultures, and yet bry.ke couldn’t even be bothered to do the bare fucking minimum of at least having the kat.aang kids in blue and yellow clothes. if you’re going to claim that a significant aspect of this new, postwar world is the increased cultural exchange across nations then the kat.aang family of all people should be emblematic of that change! but no, instead of taking the opportunity to actually delve into and depict the intricacies of a blended household, we might as well just stick to the same shit we’ve been doing since atla because why think of something new, right?

it’s even more troubling that within the strange cultural division of the ka kids, it’s katara’s culture that gets the shaft. tenzin’s entire family might as well be air nomads through and through, and while bumi and kya seem to have been intentionally excluded from air nomad culture through no fault of their own, they don’t seem to know (or care) any more about their swt heritage either. the natural conclusion to draw from that is evidently that katara’s culture just doesn’t matter as much as aang’s in their family, and that paints a very disturbing picture of how aang views his wife’s heritage (especially with the worldbuilding of atla portraying the air nomads as ‘spiritually pure’ in comparison to everyone else).

i have no patience for the common ka defense that aang is a survivor of genocide so his culture should take more priority because a) katara is also a genocide survivor, as ka stans are so fond of pointing out until it doesn’t work in their favour and b) why are we acting like cultural integration is some sort of zero sum game? tenzin, kya and bumi aren’t going to run out of space for their air nomad traditions and practices just because they know more about their swt background as well. there’s no arbitrary limit on how much you can learn of your heritage.

yes, i know bry.ke didn’t intend for the ka family to come across this way. but whether the implications were purposeful or not, they still exist, and it’s fucking galling that the fandom will call zutara and zutara shippers racist all while defending the shitty writing choices of two american white men — and then pat themselves on the back for being progressive, as if genuine activism means harassing real poc in the name of fictional ones.

[tubapun]

Hello All!! As you might have seen, I have spent this last week compiling all the monsters listed in the Scooby-Doo Encyclopedia (which covers every series from Where Are You through 13 Ghosts) into a spreadsheet, categorizing them by type, realness, and series. This is an ongoing project, but I wanted to be able to share what I have so far in terms of data!! Let's begin with a breakdown of Monster Types!!

This first pie chart details the breakdown by pure monster type, meaning monsters that are only one sort of monster. This may seem arbitrary, but as you can see, a whopping 25.98% of all monsters across the series included are some sort of combination monster. That's the largest category overall, but the largest specific category is Ghosts, with 19.61% of the 204 listed monsters being just a pure ghost. Some are sheets and some are just glowing translucent dudes, but either way they're haunting the gang intensely.

The only sort of monster that never appears outside of a combination is the Pirate. I almost excluded that category for this reason, but enough pirates existed in combination (always with ghostliness) that i didn't feel right dropping them.

This chart is much like the first one, but counts the combination monsters in with each type they contain. Because of this overlap, the percentages technically add up to 138.92%. but that's fine, cause they're still taken out of the 204 monsters. Now we can see that 37.44% of these monsters are some sort of Ghost, with Magic Users and non-anthro Animals being the next largest categories. For those counting, that's 76 instances of a Ghost type monster, most of which are combined with some other monster type!! Speaking of which...

These two charts detail the combinations, with the first one being about the sort of combos we get and how often they occur, and the second being about the instances of each type in the totality of the "multiple" category (total of 53 monsters for those of you who want the numbers from the percentages).

Notably, 69% of combination monsters are Ghosts. Nice.

Some monster types never get combined, however, with Skeletons, Robots, Cavemen, Greek Myths, Mummies, European Legends, Dragons, and Evil Humans always occurring as just themselves with no extra modifiers. But now you get to imagine a Dragon Skeleton Mummy, or any such combination and boom. Scooby-Doo Monster OC. You're welcome.

This concludes the data I currently have analyzed/available. I hope to have more soon, either a dive into which sort of monster is most often real or a dive into type percentages per Series (most of the real ones seems to be the ones from the Scrappy series, so I bet that will overlap the two categories). If you have any requests on data or even just want to see the actual main sheet these charts are pulling data from, please let me know, this has become a passion project in a very real sense.

Edit on 9/8: Here is the Breakdown of Monster Definitions with bonus stats on common Motives and Realness

Edit on 9/7: Fixed the first two charts to reflect an update in the data. I had initially placed Greek onster in the general European section, which caused their percentages to be flipped.

Another Edit on 9/7: Somehow missed that a character named "Ghost of" was in fact a ghost/magic user and not just a ghost. this has been fixed and the charts updated (thankfully the % of combos that are ghosts is still 69. nice)

Edit 9/8: I missed a monster somehow. This has been fixed in the charts and percents and numbers listed.

[dingodad]

which of your fantrolls are derse and which are prospit. and do you believe there's a meaningful divide?

these guys inherited their dream moons pretty straightforwardly from the characters they were inspired by.

dream moon feels kind of like the most astrology esque of all of homestuck's astrology type systems LOL in that basically all of the characters inherited them based on totally arbitrary circumstance (same moon as the rest of my family members, same moon as the rest of the players who wanted to join team vriska / team equius, etc.) and the comic never once seems to try to explain it in any deeper terms than that. so any analysis of what they might mean is just trying to find patterns in disparate personalities. (i guess dream moon being significant is a real thing now that it's included in the official aspect test but i'm not even going to bother looking those up because i don't really care that much. lol)

there are some interpretations i've found interesting.. like prospit dreamers playing active roles and being protagonists while derse dreamers are behind the scenes actors and backgrounders is so obviously true but it also seems so redundantly similar to active + passive classes. and the one about prospit dreamers being upfront with their personalities and derse dreamers hiding behind a mask is fun for explaining oddities like dersite nepeta but falls apart for other characters.

so i've never once thought about what moon "fits" a character before deciding where they go, i 100% always just sort them towards the beginning of the design process and then soooometimes when i develop a character further i will take their lunar sway into account and think about how it might contribute to their personality or arc. but it's usually a more personalised thing, like, what does being on prospit or on derse mean to that character in particular.. so i wouldn't say i think of there being a "divide" between the two. their significances can vary. while being a derse dreamer obviously doesn't MAKE you a villain for instance it's easy to justify why a villain might belong on derse and a dersite villain might be very different to a prospitian villain. <- thinking about it harder right now than i probably ever have before in my life

[canmom]

inadequate definitions of a computer game

I'm a game dev! So I make these things called computer games. But what is it that I'm making exactly?

One simple answer is that a computer game is a string of data. That is, after all, what Steam sends you when you buy a game. The data consists of instructions, art assets, text strings, metadata etc which can be 'executed' by a suitable computer to play that game. And if you copy that data without paying the right person you're a criminal doing a crime etc etc.

But is that data the game? It can't be, because you can have completely different data that is still 'the game'. A Windows build and a Linux build of a game are probably no more similar than any two random binary strings. If you know what you're looking for you could correlate them piece by piece - that string of data represents that texture, which is present in both - but only if you know, and you decompress the data the right way etc etc. But they're the same game, because they do the same thing when you run them.

So it seems a computer game is defined by what it does rather than how it's represented on the computer. This isn't a unique property of computer games - consider how many ways you can encode a movie for example.

But which of the things it does define a given game? Computer games have a remarkable number of pieces to them, and as you soon find out when you're making one, they can all be swapped out pretty freely.

For example, a game's music is often a pretty integral part of 'the experience'. But you can easily mod a game to have different music. We don't usually consider such a modded game to be a different game entirely. Well, it's a matter of degree, it's not absolute... swap out a game's music and it's still the same game. Replace all the models, levels, etc etc as in a 'total conversion' mod and it is a 'new game'. Where we draw the line is ultimately arbitrary...

But this is pretty remarkable, I think. Most artworks in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction(TM) have a pretty fixed form. A movie is a sequence of images and sounds arranged in time, a novel is a specific string of characters. Computer games, though, are flexible things.

A computer game is assembled from lots of little elements. Each of them on their own might be more or less specific, but it's how they're put in relation to each other that gives a game its identity. You glue together these elements in the mind of the audience: play the song City Ruins (Rays of Light) and if you've played the game, it will likely conjure the image of 2B's dress, the feeling dodging the machine lifeforms, the story about the androids and their existential tragedy, all unified in this thing we call "NieR Automata". In another universe, we could imagine that some other elements were tied together in this way - another game that happened to compose the 'same song' with a different aesthetic or mechanics. But the game is beloved because all these things are considered consonant.

Computer games share this in common with film, comics, etc etc. - they're all combinations of other art forms. But computer games have this extra thing that's more or less unique to the medium, the element of direct interaction with some kind of mutable 'state' inside the computer.

At a lower level of abstraction, when you interact with a computer game, data is sent from a controller (keyboard etc) to be read by the game, which modifies some stored state in computer memory; another part of the program 'reads' that state and displays pixels on the screen. Which means there is this separation between the presentational aspect and the 'mechanics'. You look the screen and see a human running but I, the game developer, can 'know' that what's 'really' going on is that a capsule collider is moving across a plane, and we change the position and rotation value based on your input. Then, to 'draw it', another variable holds animation state, and we're sampling the animation data, and doing some IK, and deforming vertices on the GPU, and pumping it through a fragment shader and so on... but all of that graphics stuff could be swapped out and the game would still 'play the same' in the sense that the same inputs would change the game state in the same way with the 'same outcome'. There are even some games, like NetHack and Dwarf Fortress, which support many different 'frontends' which look quite different.

But which is more 'real'? We can't see the game state. We might say that given this game state we update this enum to the value we consider to mean a player has won (let's say... 0b00000010), but the only way that the player knows they've won it is if we display a corresponding message on the screen. That's the only reason we care, as well. The presentation is absolutely integral. All that internal state is just there to make sure that 'you won' and whatever other information is displayed on the screen at the right time to maintain the illusion that 'there is a game' which we're working so hard to convey.

And the state of the program is not exactly what we're trying to convey. The player is not imagining floating point values changing, let alone cpu instructions changing a binary field, or voltages in silicon; they're imagining an object in a location. 'A character jumping.' We are trying to make sure that fantasy is believable. Every layer has to work together to make this happen. Ultimately what we're creating is a rectangle of flickering lights but if we do our job well enough, and it's approached with a willingness to suspend disbelief, it will come across as something like a place inhabited by something like people...

So a game isn't any particular element of its aesthetic presentation, and it isn't the way its data changes in response to interaction. It's some kind of gestalt created from the two, only when a human interacts with the whole system, which allows them to conjure a fantasy in large part designed by another human - and have this external thing reinforce it and make it feel concrete. That's what it's my job to create. What a marvellously abstract entity...

[alexanderwales]

Sweet Polly Oliver

There's this trope that doesn't show up all that much in Western media where a woman has to, for contrived reasons, pretend to be a man. By contrast, it seems like there's a new K-drama every year or two that has this as its core premise, usually part of a romance.

Personally, I love it, and I'm not entirely sure why.

Some of it is that I'm a sucker for forbidden love, especially when the thing that forbids that love is something that's mostly in the minds of the characters. When two characters yearn for each other and feel like there's this enormous gulf between them, not realizing that that gulf is at best six inches across? That gets me.

Some of it is that I find the tropes fun — secret identities, misunderstandings, people talking past each other, double-booking, that sort of thing.

There's a stock scene where the love interest does something that his culture perceives as totally fine for two men but inappropriate for a man and a woman, but he's oblivious and she's shocked, stunned, or blushing. Maybe he slapped her butt, or got undressed in front of her, or just made some sexual comment.

There's this other stock scene where she does something that would be appropriate for a man and a woman but inappropriate for two men. Some of that "male distance" gets eroded. She falls asleep on him. She slips her hand into his without thinking much about it, then withdraws when she remembers.

Obviously this only works if you have some fairly strong gender roles, which I think might be one of the reasons that it's not super popular in the West. Of course, one of the things I like is that it's poking at how gender is performed and perceived, these arbitrary rules about how we relate to each other, what's appropriate and inappropriate, how feelings can bubble up, where the transgressions lie.

And of course most of these end up in completely conventional straight relationships, partly because the intended audience seems to be straight women, but also partly because they don't want to make a statement. I have watched three or four of these now, and I would be shocked if the next one I watch concluded with any kind of queer acceptance (beyond what's implied by all the gender stuff that goes on over the course of twenty episodes of gender poking). There's flirtation with queerness and gender nonconformity, I guess.

I've just started on The King's Affection, which seems to be taking the whole thing a little more seriously, but it feels like it might still fill the same niche.

[thevindicativevordan]

I don't think I've seen you talk about him but what are your thoughts on Captain America (Steve Rodgers)? Seems for all of Marvel's various Superman expies, he's the one most fans from what I've seen will say is Marvel's equivalent to Superman.

Spider-Man is the real Marvel equivalent while Hulk is the real Marvel contrast, which is probably why I've never been too enamored with Cap. He's a fine enough character but never one I've considered myself a devoted fan of.

Don't get me wrong, Cap has loads of excellent comics, including the oft cited Brubaker run. No doubt in my mind he has a much higher stack of quality comics than Iron Man does. Other than wearing a red and blue costume and being seen as the moral paragon however, he and Superman don't have much in common. Superman is a superpowered alien whose heritage is foundational to who he is. Cap is a superpowered human whose immigrant heritage is frankly little more than a footnote. You could easily make Steve the descendant of Pilgrims and it wouldn't change much. All that matters is that Steve Rogers was a weak, sickly kid who was pure of heart and embodied the best of America's ideals, with the Serum giving him the body to match his spirit. Defining what those ideals actually are is totally subjective and arbitrary because America itself is an inconsistent bag of hypocrisy.

Another feature of Cap's character is that at heart, he is a war comics protagonist. Even when his "wars" are set in the present, they always tie back to the events of the 20th century. If Superman is about the hopes and fears of the future, as befitting the Man of Tomorrow, Cap is about the sins of the past returning to haunt us, as befitting the Man Out Of Time. His greatest foe is fascism's counter-icon, the Red Skull. America's 20th century conflicts with Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia form the ideological foundation for most of the foes Cap fights against. Lex Luthor might have fascist elements, but he is not an outspoken proponent of fascism in the way that Skull is. There's no avoiding that America as a nation and a concept is central to Steve in a way it isn't for Clark. Steve's relationship with America - including it's past and present actions good and bad - is the central component of his character, whereas for Superman it's his relationship or lack thereof with Krypton.

Even as a contrast I don't think Supes is the best DC character to pair with Cap. Oddly enough, Batman is the better choice:

Steve and Bruce were both orphaned at a young age, but Bruce had money whereas Steve grew up in poverty. Bruce is a WASP whose roots stretch back to America's founding, whereas Steve is the son of Irish Catholic immigrants. Batman is the dark and cynical one who never kills, where Captain America is the bright and optimistic one who sometimes does. They both lost partners who returned as antagonists. They both are master tacticians, fighters, and leaders who transformed themselves into the peak of human perfection in order to win a war. Tellingly it's Batman with whom Steve shares a moment of empathy in the JLA/Avengers crossover, and I believe there's more to be mined from comparing and contrasting these two.

Short version? Interesting enough character, not one of my favs.

[bramblewhisker]

My BrambleSquirrel

They are rivals from relatively early into Squirrelpaw's apprenticeship. Squirrelpaw antagonized him first because she thinks of him as the #1 up-and-coming warrior in ThunderClan, and thus a fitting rival for her, the great Squirrelpaw. Brambleclaw would not have normally taken the bait from an apprentice, but he idolizes Firestar, and he feels self conscious about his kin so brazenly challenging him (he wants her to think he's cool so bad, not realizing she already does). They frequently try to show-up one another. Every other cat in the clan is like "oooh they flirting."

Before they're really official (but are totally a couple already), they have their first big fight, about Hawkfrost. Squirrelpaw/flight is right in her purpose but she doesn't articulate it well. She initially has some trouble understanding his complicated relationship with his father, as compared to her healthy relationship with her own (who, again, is also the cat he idolizes). Brambleclaw is too closed off about the fact that he's dealing with a lot of Feelings, because he doesn't want her to see him looking "weak". It's messy and they're both frustrated because they both really like the other one still. Squirrelflight dates Ashfur for a bit, and she really does like and respect him, but he's just not the cat for her.

Eventually they talk things out. Squirrelflight notably does not gloat when her suspicions about Hawkfrost prove to be true, which is an early building block of trust in their relationship. They are over the moon about each other for a while. ThunderClan cats joke for a while that even a rabbit might be impressed by those two. They never stop challenging each other, though, and can frequently be seen competing over the most arbitrary thing. This includes the occasional argument, but they always make up enthusiastically.

When Squirrelflight shows up with kits Bramble is: ecstatic. He's full-on dad mode he's so excited. Things continue to be really happy until the reveal. Brambleclaw feels hurt because in his mind this means that she didn't trust him enough to share the secret. And he feels a misguided sense of loss that his kits are no longer "his". (How he ultimately works this out with each of the Three is a whole separate topic.) He initiates the breakup. Squirrelflight is hurt because she feels that he isn't giving enough consideration to her position. It very much mirrors the Hawkfrost situation in that way.

The break-up is bitter but quiet. They just sort of simmer. Brambleclaw makes it a point to not change how he makes patrols, putting her in charge of a normal amount, but he speaks to her only as required by his duties. She tries to make small-talk on a few occasions, but he quickly finds a reason to excuse himself each time ("Sorry, I need to plan tomorrow's patrols."), so she stops trying.

Bramblestar's Storm? I'm sorry you have the wrong number.

The great battle happens, Firestar dies. Brambleclaw names Squirrelflight his deputy. He has come to understand that his shock at learning that his kits weren't technically his caused him to lash out more than he might otherwise, and feels regretful, but he has a hard time broaching the topic with Squirrelflight. Meetings as leader and deputy start awkwardly strictly functional, but slowly it drifts into them hanging out, them going hunting together, eventually essentially dating again. ThunderClan buzzes with the gossip.

They get back together. Cats who were around remark to those who weren't how it seems like when they were first mates. That includes how the two of them will spend half a day trying to one-up each other on some point about who behaved most appropriately during the interaction at the WindClan border earlier. Alderkit and Sparkkit get SO MUCH ATTENTION when they are born

Squirrelflight's Hope? Never heard of her.

After the events of Broken Code things are very tense. Bramblestar is just... not up to it anymore. Squirrelflight basically has to lead even though she doesn't actually have the authority to and it stresses her out (especially after being acting leader in TBC didn't exactly go smoothly). They fight a lot, but they always nest together. Bramblestar has a hard time getting through the night a lot, and she wants to comfort him.

After Squirrelstar becomes leader and Brambleclaw has retired it's a breath of fresh air. With her officially able to handle clan matters they are happy as can be, and some of the younger cats might describe them as sickeningly sweet together. Brambleclaw dens with the elders during the day but he's in Squirrelstar's den each night. He's able to be the big spoon sometimes again :3

Idk I love them you can't make me not love them no matter how many super editions you write, Erin.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I kind of believe Ace will play at least somewhat of a role on episode 7. Maybe the fact they set him up to be Malleus’ birthday interviewer this year is an indicator of that, but I could be reaching.

Ace’s relationship with his friend group is interesting because he acts like he’s just nonchalantly there. Like “What? No, I don’t really care about those people, I’m around just because!” — but as we can see, he really does care. He cares about Deuce, MC, and Grim (I believe some of his vignettes hint to that?). He’s the only one who isn’t visibly upset (as in, not letting it show) at the prospect of MC leaving, choosing to deflect the subject when the mood is souring because of Deuce and Grim saying it’ll get lonely without MC.

Also, I think the friend group just came together beautifully and will be relevant in episode 7. Coincidentally, the friend group has 7 people: Ace, Deuce, Grim, MC, Jack, Epel, Ortho and Sebek. I say Sebek because it’s heavily hinted he’ll join the friend group(what stands out is the 1 year official art and anthology comic cover featuring everyone + Sebek even though at there wasn’t much to justify his presence there). The way Ace, Deuce, MC and Grim initially formed a quartet of people begrudgingly brought together by complete chance then developed into a group of friends is very precious to me, and I believe that’ll at least play a part in this episode, considering this is the one Sebek will (apparently) join our group. Which also makes sense for them to be able to explore Sebek as a character, since this is the Diasomnia episode.

Idk if I’m being a clown and pointing out the obvious but anyways!!! I think Ace might have his moment to shine in the next updates, depending on how the story goes. Or idk, he might be hit by the sleeping spell and stay out of the story the whole time, but since Deuce got his spotlight in Glorious Masquerade, it would be only fair.

[Referencing this post!]

I think the birthday interviewers are arbitrary to the main story 🤔 There doesn’t seem to be a clear pattern to the interviewers assigned for the Broomquet series of cards (whereas Birthday Boy and Union definitely did have their own patterns). If there's some significance to Ace interviewing Malleus, then wouldn't the logic hold that the other Broomquet interviewers also have some kind of big tie to the birthday boy...? There doesn't seem to be this importance reflected in all of them, at least as far as I can tell.

Of the main trio (Ace, Deuce, and Grim), Ace seems to be the least emotionally vulnerable. He’s not totally honest about his feelings (despite, ironically, being the one to tell others how it is without any sugarcoating) and uses jokes/humor to deflect from confrontational or difficult situations he doesn’t want to get entangled in. Ace claims to not care, but his actions tell very different stories than his words do (see: the worry he displays in episodes 4 and 6, as well as some vignettes and events). I guess this could be called “tsundere” behavior, but rather than being his entire identity, it’s only a single aspect of Ace and lends to his overall cheeky yet bright character.

Ace doesn’t want to linger on things he considers boring or sad; he lives in the moment and wants to quickly move on to the next thing that may be more fun or happy than the current moment. The same does not hold true for Deuce or Grim, and for very good but also very different reasons. Deuce fixates on his past and his failures due to wanting to reform from his delinquency, and Grim is attached to Yuu because of their close bond as partners, roommates, and master-minion. Given this, of course Deuce and Grim would feel more sad and make remarks about the things they cannot do together anymore once Yuu leaves.

I think it’s possible that Ace has multiple intentions behind not sulking with Deuce and Grim 🤔 For one, yeah, it’s not in Ace’s nature to; he’s just more cheerful than the other two—but I think this speaks to other aspects of his character. He’s the only one of the group to point out that Mickey may not actually be Yuu’s ticket home, yet everyone is treating it like it’s already the end. I wonder if this is Ace lying to himself too—making up some excuse to avoid looking at the truth, or maybe genuinely hoping he’s actually right. Alternatively, maybe Ace is saying these things because he doesn’t want to see his friends sad—or even to alleviate everyone’s pain when Yuu ultimately has to leave (in kind of a “don’t cry now, save your tears for when the time finally comes” way) 🫠

I appreciate that the first years assemble in 7, but it felt a little clunky to me since we didn’t previously see them unite or act as a big group of friends. It was usually just Adeuce + the first year for that particular episode like Epel or isolated incidents (ie checking in with Jack and Savanaclaw pre-VDC in 5). I’m still under the impression that Adeuce and Grim are the close friends of Yuu and the other first years are friends in a looser sense of the word—but narratively speaking, it makes sense to bring the group together for what is meant to be the “last chapter” of their story. It emphasizes how far everyone has come, how they’ve grown so much closer than the circumstances which initially forced them together. It feels more bittersweet seeing the friends made along the way and realizing that Yuu has to say goodbye to them all.

It’s interesting that we end up with 7 people (excluding Yuu from this count), one for each dorm (even if there is no one representing Octavinelle and Scarabia + two representing Heartslabyul). I don’t know if that means anything right now other than being a recurring number, but it would be cool if it does! The promotional materials of the game really seem to market the first years as a group of close knit friends, which is reflected in the fandom works but not super deeply in the main story 🤔 so it’d be nice to see more of the group together and such. I wonder how Sebek will be integrated with them, seeing as he’s so opposed to befriending humans and those outside of the Briar Valley. He’ll certainly complicate the group’s dynamics and add a lot of flair to episode 7!

Oh, I’m sure Ace will have his fun at his own Glorious Masquerade (the Halloween 2023 event will probably be Masquerade Part II with the other half of the NRC cast). I just hope Ace also gets to play a big role in episode 7 😌 and earns his unique magic along the way~

[qqueenofhades]

hiii ❣ it's a bit random but do you have any advice for a beginner writer?

i want to write web series and while i'm going to write for my pleasure, i still would love my work to be good enough to have readers.

but while i read stuff and write fics, i don't think it's enough to help me write an original several episode work. + i want to write in english but i'm not a native english speaker.

do you have a textbook or any resource in mind that you'd reccomend to a beginner writer?

Unfortunately, I don't have one single one-size-fits-all resource or silver-bullet magical writing improvement tool that I can recommend, as everyone learns/practices in different ways and some people swear by things that don't work for other people. I can't speak to the value of Grammarly or any other online tool that promises to make you a better writer, as they can often be used to feed your work into AI, make bizarre and/or flatly incorrect suggestions, or otherwise be confusing and unhelpful for a newbie writer, especially someone whose first language isn't English. If you work better within an interactive framework or just want to see if it does seem useful, then by all means do check it out, but don't feel like you HAVE to use it (or anything else) if it doesn't offer much to your process.

As ever, and unhelpfully, my advice for becoming a better writer is to write a lot and read a lot, in all kinds of genres. There's really no get-good-at-writing-quick hack to suddenly get you where you want to be overnight, but you CAN get there by dint of steady and sustained progress. You say that you already read things and write fics -- which is great! You clearly already have some practice with the overall concept, and you are not starting from total scratch. While a lot of writers have a goal of something they really want to do (i.e. in your case, write a web series) and feel like the first one they write has to be The Real and Good One that they only launch into after appropriate years of practice, that's not the case. You can start writing the series now, if you want to. You'll have to also share it with people who you trust to give you helpful and honest feedback (the mortifying ordeal of being known, etc) while also respecting the skill level that you're currently at and not tearing it down for being up to professional standards or something else that doesn't accurately reflect where you are and what you need feedback on. But yes, you will have to write steadily, share your writing with others, and challenge yourself to read and write in different kinds of texts -- i.e. not just fic or amateur fan content, but literature, nonfiction, genre fiction, academia, special interest subjects, and so forth. Writing by professionally published authors is not necessarily always better, but it does give you a sense as to what is deemed marketable, what the general skill level and standard is, and what you might like to emulate or try to do with your own projects.

Also, as a side note, I think that plenty of amateur or fan-written content on the internet is not necessarily outstandingly good, technically speaking. This doesn't mean it's bad -- plenty of people read and enjoy it anyway, and aren't coming in expecting it to be an award-winning piece of fine literature. Standards for what is good, enjoyable, or well-written vary dramatically by genre, medium, what your audience is expecting and/or paying for, and so forth. Some people also have high and/or picky standards for what they will read or what they find enjoyable to read, while others will just go along with the story and don't care as much about the format or technical prowess or so forth. So it is very much a subjective measurement, and if you get to a place where you enjoy reading your own stuff and find it engaging -- regardless of what arbitrary skill level you feel yourself to be on -- chances are that other people will too.

[anomalocariscanadensis]

@klonkkukin:

yes, i think i understand; mathematical objects are definable to the extent where one can say they are identical, whereas the variety in biological "objects" is so pronounced it calls into question the validity of this kind of lateral differentiation completely. this seems to be a property that comes with existing in non-ideal spaces. your answer might depend on whether your object is completely definable within ideal space, which you seem to be leaning away from.

re: biology: yeah I think that's a large part of it (also just the nature of categorization of large numbers of real entities), but it's also relevant that evolution makes it impossible to draw even mostly-neat lines between species. we all share common ancestors through continuous lines of descent. species simply can't be an equivalence class (as a platonic view would like it to be) or else everything would be the same species, so we have to draw essentially arbitrary lines on what makes something "different enough" to be a new species.

re: mathematics, it's hard to discuss without slipping into implicitly platonist language so just mentally insert any necessary caveats, but: I would say that mathematical objects aren't so much "defined in ideal space" as they are abstracted from others by forgetting all but a certain collection of properties. the things being abstracted may be real or mathematical: real-world spatial relationships, Euclidean geometry, metric spaces, topological spaces, and so on. the properties of the abstractions are grounded in the selected properties of whatever they're abstracted from. but then what we call mathematical "equality" is a matter of equivalence regarding the properties under consideration, instead of identity as such. among mathematicians, category theorists are fairly honest about this; category theory doesn't prescribe a notion of equality on objects (leaving it to the individual categories), so category theorists love to talk about things as if they're equalities and then add "up to isomorphism". a lot of mathematics is, in a philosophical sense, doing the same thing but skipping the second step. tbf a lot of fields don't have an internal notion of "isomorphism", and it doesn't have any negative consequences for the field itself.

we could define totally arbitrary concepts in ideal space which aren't abstracted from anything else, but they wouldn't be of any mathematical interest so I wouldn't call them mathematics. their exploration would be more like Henry Flynt's idea of "concept art".

[bimboficationblues]

is fight club a left or right wing movie?

part of what I like about the film is that it is politically idiosyncratic in a way that I find interesting, but I think I’d be hard-pressed to defend it as “leftist” without giant screaming caveats in a way I really wouldn’t if I wanted to make a rightist case. So take that as you will. I wrote about my feelings on it here so apologies if you read that and I repeat certain points below

Like another hotly debated Fincher movie, Gone Girl, I think that there’s a preoccupation with how we construct gendered identity and how it is shaped by class and conspicuous consumption and media systems. I find that quality really interesting, but I wouldn’t call it meaningfully leftist per se except in like an Adbusters kind of way - an interest in “authenticity” is something I’m both personally skeptical towards and also a grounding value of reactionary politics

I think it’s pretty unambiguous that Tyler Durden’s politics are a kind of nihilist, revanchist manhood, and his picture of an ideal society is a weird sort of “retvrn” take on primitivism. As far as authorial intentions go I think it’s likely that Palahniuk shares Durden’s worldview at least in part (which I personally don’t feel totally translates into the screenplay adaptation, perhaps in part due to the diminished homoeroticism) and Fincher seems at least sympathetic to it in his public comments, though he also seems to focus more on the economic aspects. But I don’t think author intent is the end-all of cinematic critique and I’m a lot more interested in how stuff is framed and structured and shot

I think what really seals the ambiguity is the lack of a meaningful alternative to Durden’s worldview even though that worldview is presented as wrong (quite literally delusional). Like, the reveal that Tyler is an idealized self looking to complete suicide and take the world with him (“liberating” it in the process), does sap the power of some of the salient critiques of consumption and advertising and alienation - the tradeoff being that it also undermines the stupid male resentment stuff. It almost becomes a kind of anti-politics. Is the idea that everything is actually fine? Is the critique unqualifiedly correct but the solution wrong - perhaps there *is* no appropriate solution and the status quo should just be accepted? Are the critiques a hodgepodge of semi-accurate complaints about modern capitalism distorted by male entitlement and fear of feminization, which leads to (or rather, justifies) bad solutions? That last one is probably closest to my personal reading, but I’m cognizant of the fact that it’s the one that most closely aligns with my own views, in that it resonates with how I understand certain reactionary modernisms. One of the most interesting details for me that supports this is how the fight club is meant to offer an alternative individualism to consumer culture’s pseudo-individualism, but the fight club is eventually subsumed into cultic, conformist behavior, the exact sort of mass manipulation that advertising and culture-industry engages in: people who dress the same, repeat rules they don't understand and had no participation in making, follow arbitrary orders, and only have identity in death.

On the flipside, there’s also a kind of interesting thread where like, the narrator is homoerotic with Tyler and views Marla as an invasive presence right up until the point where he’s reached disillusionment with Tyler and Project Mayhem, and at that point he pivots hard to a reaffirmation of his heterosexuality through desire for Marla. This might be a discomfort with M/M sexuality (note the adaptational change from the narrator meeting Tyler on a nude beach to meeting him on a plane), suggesting that the film's underlying anxiety is not Tyler's fear about emasculation and feminization creating a weaker society, but a fear of male homoeroticism and its supposedly destructive, anti-civilizational quality

These are all a lot of different, potentially mutually exclusive readings but I guess it points towards the answer of "I dunno, it depends on where you place your emphases."

[haggishlyhagging]

Because of our social circumstances, male and female are really two cultures and their life experiences are utterly different—and this is crucial. Implicit in all the gender identity development which takes place through childhood is the sum total of the parents', the peers, and the culture's notions of what is appropriate to each gender by way of temperament, character, interests, status, worth, gesture, and expression. Every moment of the child's life is a clue to how he or she must think and behave to attain of satisfy the demands which gender places upon one. In adolescence, the merciless task of conformity grows to crisis proportions, generally cooling and settling in maturity.

Since patriarchy's biological foundations appear to be so very insecure, one has some cause to admire the strength of a "socialization" which can continue a universal condition "on faith alone," as it were, or through an acquired value system exclusively. What does seem decisive in assuring the maintenance of the temperamental differences between the sexes is the conditioning of early childhood. Conditioning runs in a circle of self-perpetuation and self-fulfilling prophecy. To take a simple example: expectations the culture cherishes about his gender identity encourage the young male to develop aggressive impulses, and the female to thwart her own or turn them inward. The result is that the male tends to have aggression reinforced in his behavior, often with significant anti-social possibilities. Thereupon the culture consents to believe the possession of the male indicator, the testes, penis, and scrotum, in itself characterizes the aggressive impulse, and even vulgarly celebrates it in such encomiums as "that guy has balls." The same process of reinforcement is evident in producing the chief "feminine" virtue of passivity.

In contemporary terminology, the basic division of temperamental trait is marshaled along the line of "aggression is male" and "passivity is female." All other temperamental traits are somehow—often with the most dexterous ingenuity—aligned to correspond. If aggressiveness is the trait of the master class, docility must be the corresponding trait of a subject group. The usual hope of such line of reasoning is that "nature," by some impossible outside chance, might still be depended upon to rationalize the patriarchal system. An important consideration to be remembered here is that in patriarchy, the function of norm is unthinkingly delegated to the male—were it not, one might as plausibly speak of "feminine" behavior as active, and "masculine" behavior as hyperactive or hyperaggressive.

. . .

The arbitrary character of patriarchal ascriptions of temperament and role has little effect upon their power over us. Nor do the mutually exclusive, contradictory, and polar qualities of the categories "masculine" and "feminine" imposed upon human personality give rise to sufficiently serious question among us. Under their aegis each personality becomes little more, and often less than half, of its human potential. Politically, the fact that each group exhibits a circumscribed but complementary personality and range of activity is of secondary importance to the fact that each represents a status or power division. In the matter of conformity patriarchy is a governing ideology without peer; it is probable that no other system has ever exercised such a complete control over its subjects.

-Kate Millett, Sexual Politics

[knightotoc]

ranking all the scary movies/shorts/TV I saw and the scary books/stories I read this spooky season (August - October)

Mr. Vampire (hilarious 80s kung fu-jiangshi-ghost bride movie from Hong Kong)

The Innocents (rewatched this beloved 60s British ghost movie about abandonment vs smothering, grief vs insanity)

Carrie (iconic 70s tragi-goofy sexploitation-turned-bloodbath movie)

The Beast in the Jungle (Henry James short story about the horror of missed opportunity, a la I Saw The TV Glow) (which would have been #1 but I saw it before my arbitrary cut off date)

Dracula + Spanish Dracula 1931 (rewatched beloved Dwight Frye vehicle + finally watched its filmed-by-night Spanish counterpart, and learned you gotta see them together)

The Curse of Frankenstein (finally watched some 50s Hammer horror with Peter Cushing as the nastiest Frankenstein ever and Christopher Lee as a pathetic wet cat)

Dracula (más Hammer with da boys)

The Way It Came (another Henry James that I especially liked for being strangely funny)

The Haunting of Bly Manor (rewatched beloved TV show and found more flaws in it this time, oops🙃 but it got me to read these Henry Jameses so 👏 and it still got me to cry 👏)

Boogeyman (free YouTube movie from 2005 that everyone thinks is terrible except for me, I thought it was absolutely fantastic, though that might have to do with all the parallels I was seeing to Attack of the Clones)

Personal Shopper (heartbreaking and beautiful Kristen Stewart vehicle)

American Psycho (the most disturbing book I've ever read, by far the most fucked thing here)

The Exorcist III (I never saw the first one but I skipped to part 3 for my man Brad Dourif and Blatty's always relatable spiritual torment)

Viy (super fun 60s Soviet man vs ghost lady movie)

Weeping Woman Way (I found a new Junji Ito at the library and this was my favorite story, as someone who used to cry all the fucking time)

The Romance of Certain Old Clothes (Henry James story about envy and repression, if you can believe it)

The Metamorphosis of Mr. Samsa (brilliant Canadian animation short from the 70s made by pushing sand around to give a swirling, wiggly feeling)

The Last Man on Earth (bleak and quite accurate Vincent Price adaptation of the Matheson novella)

Nightbreed (really fun Clive Barker "mean humans vs nice monsters" movie)

Dead Ringers (beautifully sad Cronenberg about the tragedy of utter codependence)

Scanners (an earlier Cronenberg about psychic connections, which is one of my favorite themes)

Society (fun rich people body horror cult movie with a fabulous finale; I thought the rest of it was quite touching too)

Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker (👏camp👏)

Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? (terrifying short story from the 60s about a demon kidnapper by Joyce Carol Oates from Twitter)

The Spirit Flow of Aokigahara (another great one from the Junji Ito book which has an evil mlm makeout and a totally fucked Logan Paul reference)

Minnie the Moocher (very very good Betty Boop, featuring rotoscoped Cab Calloway)

The Lord of the Rings (speaking of rotoscoped, Bakshi's wacky 70s animation which PJ kind of ripped off, kind of improved, but has its own fabulous character that had me weeping the nerdiest tears I've shed since like 2017)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (weird and beautiful Thai movie from 2010 that definitely counts as existential horror)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle (people seem very critical of this 2018 adaptation of the Shirley Jackson novella, but I loved it, especially the way it so often keeps the camera on the fiercely protected ground)

Possession (weird European-y movie that is really good but I had a bit of a hard time getting into)

Isle of the Dead (slow 40s Boris Karloff movie with some fantastic agnostic angst)

The Curse of Dracular (very cute new claymation short a guy made for his dad)

Slumber (another Junji Ito, another on the theme of a psychic connection)

The Jolly Corner (really cool Henry James story, also about missed opportunity, specifically a dissolute ex-pat fighting his mean and greedy remained-in-America-sona)

Audition (nasty Japanese time-bendy anti-romance)

The Uninvited (40s movie with a very similar ghost effect to Personal Shopper; I watched it twice and enjoyed the second time more since there's a big twist that reframes everything; saddest ghost crying I've ever heard)

Rope (the gay Hitchcock one; makes me want to see a stage production where the Jimmy Stewart character is actually fruity)

Train to Busan (fun and emotional Korean zombie movie with a kinda stupid ending)

Blade (90s comic book vampire movie with the Volturi if they were Protestant)

Hellboy (romantic and transgender-ish comic book movie from 2004)

Perfect Blue (90s anime movie that predicted internet parasocial relationships; very good but I have some beef with it)

Never Open That Door (50s Argentine anthology movie that goes great with Black Sabbath and Shadow of a Doubt)

Dead of Night (40s British anthology movie with a brilliant framing device)

The Phantom of the Monastery (30s Mexican movie that really understands how horrifyingly effective Catholicism is at preserving stuff)

Eyes of Laura Mars (faboo 70s fashion slasher with another psychic connection)

Nosferatu (rewatched with the Radiohead soundtrack being shown at indie theaters, I thought it was awesome)

Madonna (Junji Ito vs Catholicism feat. pillars of salt)

An American Werewolf in London (very funny Landis movie with a really annoying romance)

The Alter of the Dead (Henry James anti-romance with a kinda weak ending)

The Ruins (silly plant horror movie that feels like the Hunger Games extended universe)

The Ruins (I preferred the movie because the plants just get too smart in the book)

Darth Plagueis (Star Wars at its coldest and meanest!)

Let the Right One In (creative Swedish vampire movie with some great ideas and some really stupid ones)

Hell Followed With Us (ig I'm too old for YA, but I appreciated the representation)

Don't Look Under the Bed (the scariest DCOM; pretty fun lore)

The Legend of Hell House (horny 70s movie that keeps turning me off then winning me back, feat. Peter Cushing's Van Helsing's boyfriend Michael Gough)

The Happening (the Shyamalan that's bad ... on purpose?)

Friday the 13th (fun to watch but man it is not good)

Practical Magic (frustrating cozy 90s witch movie)

Creature from the Haunted Sea (Corman parody with one or two good jokes: "Little did they know that I, Sparks Moran, was an American agent... My real name was XK150")

Carrie (the boring remake with Ansel Elgort, boo!)

Son of Dracula (dreadful 70s Ringo Starr thing with potentially interesting lore and a kinda iconic blood transfusion scene)

Hearts and Flowers (creepy 1930 stop motion that is pretty cool and imaginative but also racist af)

[secularprolifeconspectus]

Ii love abortion and abortion will never stop. It will happen forever and ever. Kill that foetus -Ghandi

I know you're trolling but this is also a great chance to talk about the book from Merton on Gandhi I've been reading and how it ties into abortion Rescue.

"A society that lives by organized greed or by systematic terrorism and oppression (they come to much the same thing in the end) will always tend to be violent because it is in a state of persistent disorder and moral confusion."

The systematic oppression of fetal people under the regime of abortion is both a foundation and fruit of our violent society. Abortion is the moral confusion that has put us in persistent disorder, which keeps us confused as we attempt to survive social violence.

"The first principle of valid political action in such a society then becomes non-cooperation with its disorder, its injustices, and more particularly with its deep commitment to untruth. Satyagraha is meaningless if it is not based on the awareness of profound inner contradiction in all societies based on force."

If it is true that fetuses are actual people like you and I and abortion murders them, then the logical conclusion of this truth is that we must have solidarity with them. We must act as if abortion is actually murder by actually entering the killing facilities where it is happening regularly and attempting to stop it. We must do this despite the great cost to ourselves, because solidarity means sacrifice. We don't sacrifice ourselves out of commitment to potential. We sacrifice ourselves to Rescue people.

If abortion continues forever and never stops, then we will never acheive a society healed from its inner contradictions based on force. There is no such thing as basic human rights if arbitrary classes of human non-persons are recognized by our governments. We will not achieve societal progress without preborn people. Our definition of people must not be a function of external power and force, 'might makes right'; it must be a recognition of inner truth, by the self of the other.

Thanks for the inspo, anon. I'm dedicating my next clinic invasion to you specifically 😘

None of us are free until all of us are free. Total fetal liberation for all. We keep us safe. Fetuses are us. Enter the murder mills and practice nonviolent resistance. You will not lose your life, but you must be willing to do so in recognition of their truth. Go Rescue fetuses from abortion. They matter because we matter. We only have humanity when we recognize theirs.

Also, don't forget Gandhi actually said:

"[I]t seems to me as clear as daylight that abortion would be a crime."

[dragontamer05]

I fully admit that even I have yet to really figure out the extent of like what Tim / his magic can like do.

Being well made of/from it, changing up his form be it keeping disguise and hiding the less the human bits or taking on full draconic form both use/need magic.

In a way it's likely at least partially the reason behind his strength, despite his size.

But like in terms of like actual skills or idk spells?

[holy shit this got waaaay long so put it under a cut lol]

Always flip flopped between if he breathes fire - like I never actually had him do it but I imagine maybe he could. Although if he did it as not full dragon probably hurts a lot, not badly injured perse just a very uncomfy feeling might leave his voice a bit raspy for little bit.

As much as he'd like to be, he's not much of a healer. Look he has tried and with more effort and training to some degree he likely could use his magic to heal. At the very least in an emergency situation a temporary help (slow bleeding/ hold something into place, though doing such would surely be very draining on him. (Makes up for it though with having fairly good first aid and medical knowledge from his dad so not totally useless in that kind of situation)

magic or not his own body does have increased healing capabilities.

Honestly most of it probably tends to manifest in either defensive ways keep himself/someone else safe or when push comes to shove

He's definitely more sensitive and able to pick up on when it comes to magical objects- be they made with magic, have magic cast on them charm/curse and while I hesitate to say he can perfectly figure out/know but at the very least very intuitive at sensing if said magic is something dark/ malicious/ dangerous in nature or something more benign- So you know not always 'good' perse but certainly nothing dangerous or needing to worry about

With training and practice Timaeus eventually would be able to perhaps despell/remove some charms/curses/magic (Inspired by the Legendary Knight Timaeus Card who upon being summoned you can banish a spell or trap) Of course even he'd have limits depending on how strong he may only be able hold it temporarily

Being something of a literal creature of magic if need he could/can draw magical energy from another to like strengthen himself. He sort of already unconsciously does it- but very very minor and not enough to affect the other person but like there is sort of a different feeling he gets when around others who have magic. Really it's only more recently he's slowly started to notice/piece together that like that there have been times where after spending time around /with someone (Yami, Mana, ect...) who has magic even if he was really exhausted before he doesn't feel quite as tired after.

That said if he's touching someone- and in this case also needs to be a voluntary choice and would never do it without asking first. He can basically use/take advantage of the other's magic and it will strengthen him

--

Though under utilized fact is that to an extent the magic which makes him, his magic although he has gained a far stronger grasp of it. It's not exactly stable , predictable and makes him unpredictable.

Sadly he was labled as 'failure' for a reason.

Part of that was from their own ideal of not thinking him suitable i.e. obedient enough or thinking he would ever be to be of use- plus growth was to slow for their liking and some other perhaps seeming arbitrary reasons.

However a big one was, a clear lack of control. Which sure some of it came from him just being this under developed lab creature without proper direction ect but there were signs that the magic and the 'experiment' / Tim wasn't exactly stable.

At one point he lashed out and attacked one of the scientists (and uh killed him). Marking him as dangerous.

And although he seemed okay after well there was no knowing if he'd suddenly turn on them, or if this creature would lose the ability to control itself with the strength of its magic in a constant state of flux and they couldn't get it to stabilize.

--

Somewhere, somehow Tim's dad was able to get his hands on a sort of charm that kind of dampened down some of that excess magic. Not a perfect solution but it helped/helps keep his magic more in check. Sort siphons off some of the excess / overflow during rises in it.

There is some connection with magic to his emotional state - though it's hard to say which way it goes. Emotion affect magic or does magic affect his emotional state, might be a mix of both. During high stress/ emotional times there's certainly an influx and can be harder to control.

That said the charm isn't a permanent solution and every so often he does kinda have to do a magic decompression if you will and just kinda allow a large release of magic. Usually by taking dragon form and going off somewhere away from any risk of harming someone and mostly just waiting it out that way.

With having gained more control he doesn't always need to wear / have the charm on him and can manage without it but that doesn't mean he won't.

The very unstable nature is why for a long time, he tended not to be able to keep control of maintaining his human appearance once night came (something something magic connected to night something something)

Thankfully such instances are a lot rarer for him now as he's slowly gained better habits of managing his magic though that doesn't mean he still doesn't fear for it happening. So he tends to be a lot more careful in the evening and why he doesn't go out as much as he'd like- or will go and find the least populated areas if he does.